Father of hazing victim disappointed with ‘slap on the wrist’

The father of a teen sex assault victim is disappointed with the penalty imposed on a perpetrator in the well-documented 'teabagging' case.

Photograph by: Greg Pender
, The StarPhoenix

The father of a teen sex assault victim is disappointed with the penalty imposed on a perpetrator in the well-documented 'teabagging' case.

“It was just a slap on the wrist. That’s a joke,” the father said, referring to the nine-month conditional discharge given to the host of a 2009 party who dragged his testicles across the face of the passed out 15-year-old at an all-night drinking party in March 2009 in a community northwest of Saskatoon.

Another teen at the party video-recorded the incident — known as ‘teabagging’ — on his cellphone and showed it to others at the school the next week.

That teen was sentenced to two years on probation and was left with a criminal record, which the host will be spared if he completes his probation without further trouble.

The complainant and the accused were under 18 at the time so a publication ban protects their identities.

“It was so hard for (my son) to deal with,” the victim’s father said.

“None of them said sorry to him. . . . The parents won’t even talk to us or look at us,” he said.

Judge Dan O’Hanlon called the teabagging “a criminal act,” “immature” and “stupid,” but said the matter probably wouldn’t have come to the attention of teachers and then the police if it hadn’t been for the cellphone images and social media.

The act falls at the low end of the spectrum of sexual assaults and is “akin to a hazing or a prank,” O’Hanlon said.

He found the young offender had no sexual motivation for the act but acknowledged that others would view it “in a sexual context.”

“The great weight of the justice system was brought to bear,” upon the six accused in the case, and the effect on them, the victim, and his family was profound, O’Hanlon said.

He wondered if the matter was handled the best way possible.

“I don’t know if the greater impact to them came as an effect of the incident itself or as a result of the charges that emanated from that incident and the (no contact) conditions (which prohibited the accused from talking to the victim or to each other) effectively separating individuals in the community and pitting members of the community against each other,” O’Hanlon said.

While he couldn’t say the complaint should have gone to mediation, O’Hanlon felt that much of that division in the community may have been lessened if the matter had not gone before the criminal court and been prolonged as it was.

The victim’s father also said he was disappointed in school officials, who found out about the incident before the family did and took it to the RCMP without consulting the family first.

O’Hanlon acknowledged the sentence was lighter than those imposed by other judges on other offenders in the same case and that it was less than the six-to-12 months sought by the Crown.

Prosecutor Suzanne Reid said the Crown is considering appealing the sentence.